Lagunitas Saturday Night

After a long day of driving to Liberty and going to a 6 year old's birthday party, we stopped off at Tipsy's for some recovery supplies. A quick peak through the selection and I found my prizes, 2 new beers from the brewer that is rising quickly up my charts, Lagunitas. I got a bomber of the Wilco Tango Foxtrot Ale and a sixer of Hairy Eyeball. I was to have a Lagunitas Saturday night which doesn't involve Tony Lamas or eating deviled eggs.

We got the kids in bed by 7:30 and I popped open a bottle of Hairy Eyeball to drink while we watched "The Life and Times of Tim" from the DVR. The hairy eyeball is a rich dark mahagony color and smells of chocolate. It had a bit of a smoky taste with brown sugar and finished with a bit of an alcoholy burn.

With the winter we've had, I'm definitely ready to move onto some lighter spring and summer beers. But, Hairy Eyeball is definitely worth checking out even with the heavy malt flavor. It's a bit of a winter warmer beer and might be a couple of months late, but I'm sure we're going to be hit with a couple more cold days before this winter's over. The Hairy Eyeball will be the perfect beer for the next cold night. Plus this is one of the rare beers that cost less than their ABV. I think the sixer was $7.99 and the ABV is 8.8%, better values are rare.

With 12 oz. of strong beer in me, plus the Single Wide, Bully! Porter and Lunar Ale I drank at the kid birthday party, I was ready for the WTF. The smell reminds me of walking through a brewery and you can smell the wort boiling (or whatever that malty smell is when you walk through a brewery). That smell is what made me think beer was going to be something special when I was 13 and on a tour of the Budweiser brewery. My dad snuck me a sip of Bud and I didn't have another beer for 4 years. But, I always remembered that smell. WTF smells like that. It pours a dark roasty brown with a thick off-white head. The taste was just a wonderful combo of roasted malt with just a hint of hops. There are better beers in the world, but the WTF is a strong contender for best value in a beer. I think I paid $3.50 for the 22 oz. bottle and I'm going to go buy more right after I finish this post. My only complaint about the WTF is that it tasted just a little flat.

On Saturday night, Lagunitas secured must try status for every one of their beers. I've never had a bad Lagunitas beer and the WTF and Hop Stoopid are excellent values as well as great beers. I foresee many more Lagunitas Saturday nights.

33 Beers

I know sometimes it is hard to keep your thoughts together on all the beers you've tried over time. Each beer hits you a different way based on your mood, your surroundings, what you're eating with it, etc. I know that even though I write on the KC Beer Blog, I only write about a fraction of the beers I consume and I don't keep track of what I thought about various beers anyplace but on the blog.

Last week when we did the blind porter tasting, we each just wrote notes on a little piece of notepad paper. I was intrigued when the guys from 33beers.com emailed me about their little beer notebook or as they call it, beer sketchbook. They offered me a couple of free books to use and I took them up on it. They definitely would have come in handy when we did our tasting.

I got my 33 beer sketchbook in the mail today and made my first entry for Phin & Matt's Extraordinary Ale from Southern Tier. If you can read my writing (I doubt you can) you will see that I don't think much of it. In my view, if you're going to call your beer an extraordinary ale, it better at least be better than ordinary. Phin and Matt apparently have different thoughts. I covered all of the relevant information in the log book including 2 and 1/2 stars.

I don't really like rating beers with a star system or on a 100 scale. I prefer to compare them to movies, porn stars or athletes. But, many people like numerical scales, c'est la vie. I don't foresee me ever noting a beer's original gravity or terminal gravity either. What I do like is the flavor wheel in the bottom right corner. In the wheel you note such things as hoppy, malty, floral, spicy, etc. on a 1 to 4 scale and then connect the dots and you get a pretty little picture. Phin & Matt's little picture looks like Texas, the Coors Light one they use as an example looks like Alaska. I really don't think I'm going to be happy until I find the Finland of beers.

The little booklet fits easily in a jeans pocket and is made from recycled paper and soy ink (if that sort of thing interests you). Each book gives you room to log 33 beers, hence the name. You can get 3 of them for $10 or 1 for $4. If you think you want to keep track of the beers you drink, I can think of many worse ways to do it and you can start your own Quixotic quest to find the Slovakia of beers. In KC, you can only order the books from the 33 Beers website.

Modus Hoperandi

A couple of weeks ago I was at Tipsy's, perhaps the best liquor store in JoCo, looking lost in front of the beer coolers. I was looking for something new, anything and that's when I found the Hop Czar. While I was standing there, one of Tipsy's helpful staff recommended a beer I'd never seen nor heard of, Modus Hoperandi from Ska Brewing. I'd never had anything from Ska mostly because it reminded me of a girl I dated in 1997 that was really into ska music. I prefer to not remember her. I didn't pick up the Modus Hoperandi that night but I got a sixer a couple of nights later.

Modus Hoperandi comes in cans unlike everything else from Ska (update: Ska also cans an ESB). When I first tried it I poured it in a glass, the way a beer should be enjoyed, and I really loved it. I almost wrote a review while I was drinking my first one which rarely, if ever, happens. I decided I wanted to drink one from the can and maybe do a review where I could recommend it for tailgating for those that would subject themselves to Royals baseball in the spring. By the time I got around to drinking it from the can (it's nearly as good from the can as poured in a glass) I had been to a couple of smaller liquor stores in JoCo with much smaller beer selections than Tipsy's and they both carried the Modus Hoperandi and neither carried Schlafly No. 15 (I use the presence of No. 15 as a judge to how good the beer buyer is for a liquor store).

Why would a beer which comes in cans be carried in such a wide array of liquor stores in Kansas? Not only that, but why is Modus Hoperandi the only beer from Ska carried in those liquor stores? It just didn't make sense so I did some checking around and it turns out that a salesman from one of KC's beer distributors really liked Modus Hoperandi and was pushing it hard on smaller liquor stores. So, if you're going to a small liquor store and you see something that sticks out like a piece of black, volcanic glass that has no earthly business in a Maine hayfield, it may be just as valuable as what Red found under that rock in Shawshank. Only in this case Tobias, the salesman, is the one who buried it and not Andy Dufresne.

Blind Porter

Since I was having Weston, Chimpotle and Yeti over to sample the Rye on Rye, I thought it would be a good idea to add a blind porter tasting to the events. Porter is one of my favorite styles of beer and I consider Bully! Porter one of my favorite beers. Bully! was my gateway into craft beers and I hold Bully! as the benchmark of porters.

This blind porter tasting was one of my ideas that I used to throw out to Owen from Fat City because I never wanted to buy all the beer for the tasting. He had that fat Pitch expense account to use. But, since he has moved on, I thought this was the perfect opportunity, I give everyone some Rye on Rye, and they bring some beer. Plus, without including Owen, the chances of him screwing the thing up and nearly ruining my life (go ahead, click that link) were sharply diminished. So, I assigned Weston and Yeti 4 porters each to bring and Chimpotle was tasked with bringing something else interesting to drink. We put the porters on the table in my basement bar, The Lido Deck and we sat at the bar. Weston poured samples into my set of Wichita Beer Festival mugs from around 1998 and brought the mugs to us at the bar. We could not see what was being poured and Weston did not tell us (aside from one instance which we'll get to). We also had a beer back to drink while we were drinking the samples, I had a Hoss (now available year round from Great Divide and nearly always available at la manse du Vard), Yeti had a Great Divide Denver Pale Ale, and Chimpotle had a Dogfish Head Immort Ale. We were also enjoying some salt and pepper popcorn and white cheddar popcorn to cleanse our palates.

The Beers
Bell's Porter - This was a good one we thought it had some mocha, hazelnut and chocolate notes and we pretty much agreed this was a good place to start. I thought it would be in the middle of the pack.
Odell Cutthroat Porter - We disagreed on the Odell, I thought it had a good burnt taste and was nice and rich, Chimpo thought it was pretty bland with a coffee finish and Yeti thought it was watery with a malty taste.
Flying Dog Porter - We had a little fun with the Flying Dog porter because it smelled awful. We were really getting into the swing of things by the time this one was poured and we started trying to identify the smell. We had barf, locker room and dried urine from peeing your pants as the smell emanating from the Flying Dog. Yet despite the smell, I think we all agreed it was a pretty good porter. It's funny reading Yeti's note sheet where it says "Dry urine smell, sour, dry taste, gritty on the tongue, very drinkable".
Boulevard Bully! Porter - Hilarity ensues because we hated it. Our note sheets say "not much to it, weirdly bitter", a simple "Awful" from Chimpotle and "chocolate sweet nose, kinda raisiny, poured half out". At the time we were thinking it was the Flying Dog.
Founders Porter - The moment Yeti and I saw this one we were sure it was Bully!. The way the head had that chocolate brown to it to the smell and the flavor. We were sure it was Bully! and we were remarking that we knew we could pick it out. Of course, all 3 of us loved it. The whole time we were talking, Weston had a smirk on his face, at one point lifting his shirt over his mouth feigning that he had farted. He finally let the cat out of the bag and told us the one we just hated was Bully! and this one was Founders. AND that's why I wanted to do this blind.
Left Hand Black Jack Porter - I wrote immediately upon drinking this "St. Bridgets Porter" but Weston said it wasn't. We all liked it quite a bit with its chocolate malt taste and sweet smell. We were all pretty happy with it.
Sierra Nevada Porter - We were starting to get to the point of the evening where we had some trouble stying on task. The consensus on the Sierra Nevada was that it was light on taste and smell, but was enjoyable. 4 words were written total on our note sheets.
Rogue Mocha Porter- We went out on a high note with the Rogue Mocha Porter. It was the only one of the porters that we described as hoppy in any way. It was quite enjoyable and certainly one of the top 3 of the evening.


Conclusions
This was a fun exercise and well worth doing again with other styles. I'm completely shocked by some of our conclusions. Founders, Rogue and Left Hand did quite well which most would expect. Bell's, Odell and Flying Dog were middle of the pack. And most surprisingly Sierra Nevada and Boulevard did relatively poorly. We found a bottle of St. Bridgets Porter later and we drank it and, of course, enjoyed it. But, now I don't feel comfortable saying it was good because I knew what I was drinking and I usually think that I enjoy it. I don't know, my faith in my taste was shaken a little bit.

We capped off the evening by drinking a bottle of Boulevard Imperial Stout with some chocolate cupcake frosting and a couple of squares of Baker's semisweet chocolate. Stella wasn't the biggest fan of the cupcakes when she made them but the frosting was simply wonderful so in my diminished state I thought I would pull an Elaine and serve cupcake tops with the stout. The combination of the chocolate with the Boulevard Imperial Stout makes both parts better. In an evening with a brand new beer, Rye on Rye, and 9 porters the Imperial Stout was the star.

I wish I could say we stopped drinking there so I will. If you're going to attempt something like a tasting at home I recommend that you don't start the evening with a glass of an 11% ABV beer. We were starting to get a little surly halfway through the porter tasting and I think it directly attributable to the Rye on Rye. By the time we were done with the tastings, none of us really cared enough anymore to throw rankings on the 8 included in the tasting. I think I would have liked to have that. But, we drank a lot of good beer in the evening and we all plan on doing it again.

Rye on Rye My oh My

I have been looking forward to Boulevard's Rye on Rye coming out since I first saw the barrels marked "Rye" in the barrel room at the brewery. As regular readers here know, I love rye beers and I really wish every brewery made one. Having the hometown brewery make a rye beer is just the sort of thing that makes me happy. Having the hometown brewery give me a bottle before they release it was reason enough to dust off the Lido Deck bar deep in the bowels of la manse du Vard and invite people over.

Chimpotle, Weston and Yeti came over to sample the Rye on Rye with me and then do a blind tasting of porters (this will be covered in another post). Chimpo was kind enough to bring over his Smokestack tulips, the recommended glassware for the Rye on Rye, since I don't have any tulips. The rye on rye poured out a nice whiskey color and if I could pour a good glass of beer consistently I could tell you what the head looked like. As it happened, two of the pours had a finger wide head, one was almost all head and one had no head at all. I think the moderate head ones will be the normal experience. It had a real heavy whiskey smell and had me a little worried that it was going to be like drinking a glass of whiskey. While I love rye beers I've been a little worried about the aging in the Templeton Rye barrels. Bourbon or whiskey barrel aging almost always seems like a better idea than it turns out being. The beer ends up tasting like whiskey and loses it's beery goodness. The Rye on Rye does suffer from this as my first thought was that it was whiskey-y. It still had a good rye beer flavor and was enjoyable but it's more of a whiskey lover's beer. Weston kept insisting that it tasted like Delirium Nocturnum, something I would never say since I haven't had Nocturnum in a couple of years.

This is an all night sipping beer or what I'll call a destination beer. This is something you can pull out of the refrigerator at 8, pour yourself a half glass, pop in a Netflix and drink while you munch on some cheese popcorn and keep the bottle on the counter and go back for more until it's gone. If you're more worldly than me you can pop it open, cut up some aged cheeses, crack open a book and keep going back for more until it's gone. I would recommend that you drink a bottle with a buddy because of it's 11% ABV. The ABV is presumably to blame for Chimpotle uttering the nonsensical line "this is the chili dog of the Double Wide" in reference to another beer about 10 minutes after we finished off the bottle of Rye on Rye. For the $12 it retails for it should be seen as a destination, the kind of beer you pop open for a night when you want to give your taste buds a workout and you don't mind getting a little drunk for that workout. Rye on Rye will be available at KC liquor stores on Monday the 22nd.

Disclaimer: Boulevard gave me the bottle of Rye on Rye gratis. It did not affect this review, but you can be the judge of that.

Tallgrass & Tapas

Next Tuesday, February 23rd, Wil Jenny's will be hosting a Tallgrass Tapas Beer Dinner. Nothing quite accompanies beer from rural-ish Kansas like some genuine Texas cuisine.

Tallgrass (Manhattan, KS) will be featuring their four year-round beers along with their summer seasonal, Kold. Actually, Kold may even be year-round now, I have to say it's not something I really look for on the shelves. I'm kind of upset that the Wheat course does not involve a hot dog, since it features hints of the water leftover in a package of Ballparks. I kid. Not really.

Royal Cheuvront, Executive Chef for Wil Jenny's, looks to have prepared a nice menu to accompany the beers. I've only been to Wil Jenny's once and wasn't overly impressed, which may have more to do with my hatred of Texas than food quality. Ribs marinated in Dr Pepper is not something I pursue, but you totally should.

Crossing the Free State Line

After a fire in 2008 set back their plans for expansion, it looks like Free State Brewery is on the verge of having their product available in bottles at retail and kegs outside the state of Kansas. Based out of Lawrence, KS, Free State's beers have mainly been available at their brew pub, various beer festivals and Kansas-based KC restaurants like Barley's Brewhaus.

Evan Benn recently stumbled upon five Free State beers being approved for distribution in Missouri on the Missouri Brand Label Registration site. The five beers Missouri residents can expect to see in bottles are:

• Ad Astra Ale
• Copperhead Pale Ale
• Oatmeal Stout
• Stormwatch Ale
• Wheat State Golden Beer

I have yet to see anything regarding a specific time table, but the Flying Saucer currently has Free State slotted in for their March 31st Wednesday Glass Night where you get to keep the glass for a marginal fee. Hopefully they may tap a keg or two prior to the event. If you have any additional info, be sure to throw it in the comments section.

Does a server's beer knowledge affect the way you tip?

I've been going out to eat a lot over the past couple of weeks because I've been in the process of moving. Since we didn't have appliances in our kitchen until just this week, I had to leave the house in order to get a decent beer. With Barley's literally just around the corner from me now, it's the obvious first choice for me to stop in an grab a quick pint. After the past couple of visits I realized that I've had pretty good luck with servers at Barley's in Overland Park. Most of the servers there seem to be reasonably knowledgeable about what is new on tap, not just the name of the beer but the style as well. At a place like Barley's or the Flying Saucer I expect that from the wait staff though, and I'm sure they get training or cheat sheets for what's new on the tap (the girls at the Saucer have it easy with the big chalkboard above the bar).

Even when I go to a less beer-centric restaurant I still expect the server to be able to tell me what is on tap. I'm not looking for the waitress to be able to tell me original gravity or IBUs... I just want you to get the name of the beer right... I can Google the rest on my phone if I have to. Not everyone is a craft beer aficionado though, but what can you do? Well, there's always the tip... which brings me to my question:

Is it alright to tip your server less, or not at all, if they don't know what beers are on tap?

It may sound like a small thing at first but consider this... Wouldn't you expect a car sales man to know what new models were available on the car lot? What about a going to a book store, you'd expect the staff to know what new releases were on the shelves, right? Even if you keep the analogy within the food industry, would you tip a waiter the full amount if he didn't know what the daily specials were?

I'm a chronically bad tipper and I've never had to wait tables so my opinion may be a bit... biased, but if you've got beers on tap I expect you to be able to tell me what they are. Does that sound unreasonable?

Does the server's beer knowledge weigh in to your tip calculation at all? There have been times when I've had great beer conversations with the wait staff and I would have left a big tip... but like I said, I'm a horrible tipper anyways... It's a burden I have to try and live with.

The Hop Czar

I was watching The Glenn Beck program yesterday so I could cultivate my talking points for the week. One of the segments was about the new Hop Czar in the Obama administration. Apparently Obama was concerned that American craft brewers are using hops a little too willy nilly and he thought we as a people needed a hop czar to better control the use and price of hops.

Beck then went on to show a speech given by the newly appointed hop czar where he announced that Mao was his personal hero and everyone should read Saul Alinsky. Beck has the new hop czar dead to rights as being a progressive.

I was a little surprised last night when I went to Tipsy's and saw that the hop czar already had a namesake beer called Hop Czar (those damn progressives just aren't very creative). I found it strange that the hop czar chose Bridgeport Brewing to brew his namesake beer. But, when I considered that Bridgeport is from progressive paradise Portland it began to make more sense. When I got home and found out that Bridgeport was founded by the Ponzis, better known for their scheme, it made even more sense.

Even though I am completely opposed to the hop czar politically, I thought it might be nice to give his beer a shot. I couldn't argue with the price, $7.99/sixer of an 8% ABV double IPA is a bargain (until you factor in the hop shortages that will result in the necessary subsidization of hops to meet Obama's affordability index). The beer looked like a typical IPA but the smell reminded me of the 3 hours I spent in a pine tree looking for the Medallion in 1984 (I could smell pine in my fingers until school started the next fall). The taste was exactly what you would think a government dictated double IPA would taste like, real hoppy bitterness with an herbal note to it. When I was eating it with some buttered white cheddar popcorn the bitter aftertaste went away. But once I finished the popcorn the bitter aftertaste stuck around like the New Deal. Like most west coast double IPA's the sweetness was manageable and you really got hops from the Hop Czar.

I certainly don't like the politics of the Hop Czar but he makes a fine beer. Better double IPA's can be had, but, since Hop Czar comes in the convenience of a six pack of 12 oz. bottles and is reasonably priced, it has its charms. I would recommend drinking Hop Czar with a nice salty snack or you'll be left wanting to wash your esophagus with a washcloth. If the hop czar continues down this path, I don't think he'll be the worst part of this administration no matter what Glenn Beck thinks (and people don't think Glenn Beck viewers think for themselves).

Glissade

Glissade n. - 1. A gliding step in ballet
2. A controlled slide, in either a standing or sitting position, used in descending a steep icy or snowy incline.


I am neither a ballerina nor a mountain climber so I had no idea what in the hell the Glissade referred to when I picked up a sixer of Sierra Nevada Glissade. I was a little worried that glissade was some sort of joke around the Sierra Nevada brewery that the brewers slipped past the marketing people.

Glissade n. 1. A drink concocted by putting a funnel in a person's mouth and having 2 people pee in the funnel.


Thankfully it doesn't taste like what I imagined a glissade was. Sierra Nevada describes the Glissade as a golden bock (a style I had never heard of before last night) but Beer Advocate calls it a maibock. I have no idea if the 2 terms are synonymous and I don't really care. It pours out a nice golden color with a healthy white head and smells a little like a biscuit. The Glissade has a nice malty taste with just a hint of hops in the bitterness at the back of your throat. I think I could have done without that. But even with the bitterness it's a very drinkable beer, it might make a nice springtime cookout beer (it's Sierra Nevada's spring seasonal). I think it will have just the right taste drinking it from the bottle in the sunshine with a light jacket on (maybe May at this point).I don't know if I would feel comfortable ordering it in a bar though for fear of getting my imagined definition of glissade.

Interestingly, at least to me, Boulevard is releasing a golden bock sometime soon. The Wine and Cheese Place in St. Louis posted the bottle labels this morning. It's called Boss Tom's Golden Bock and is named for Tom Pendergast. It's a shame we haven't had a Pendergast named beer in KC yet. He represents a time when Democrats had balls and were as corrupt as the day is long. A better time, to be sure, than now when the Democrats are just corrupt (EQUAL TIME: So are the Republicans). UPDATE: Boss Tom's is the maibock that has been a spring tap only seasonal in previous years.

Knit Knots IPA

My kids watch this show called "Imagination Movers" on the Disney Channel. I don't think the Imagination Movers have reached quite the celebrity of Dora or Handy Manny or Diego, but they're on every day and my kids sit and watch them. So, I guess the Movers are famous to my kids. It's a kids show that has very little value to adults but it's not completely annoying, plus it has a little slapstick humor and decent music (for a kids show) in it so I find myself watching it occasionally.

On the show is a character named Knit Knots and he's an accountant or something. The Imagination Movers are creative types and Knit Knots is not so Knit Knots creates a dynamic of conflict for the Movers. Knit Knots strives for the ordinary and constantly describes himself as ordinary. But, for some reason Knit Knots always needs help from the Movers because he's so ordinary he can't figure out how to solve an everyday problem (today he couldn't find his keys and the Movers helped him find them).

As I was watching "Imagination Movers" this morning I was thinking of what to write about New Belgium's newest year round beer, Ranger IPA. I drank a couple last night and aside from getting a Taco Bell craving after drinking them, nothing was interesting about Ranger IPA. This post was very close to being 3 words "Ranger IPA, Meh". It's not that it's a bad beer, it is very drinkable and accessible for an IPA. But, I think it is what it is, New Belgium's salesmen, which they call Beer Rangers, wanted an IPA because people were clamoring for an IPA from New Belgium. So, the brewers gave them an IPA, a perfectly standard, ordinary IPA, with no imagination. Ranger IPA is the Knit Knots of IPA's; ordinary.

Ordinary certainly does not mean bad, Ranger IPA is not bad. But, it's not going to be any beer geek's favorite IPA. I think it could very easily become a nice introduction to the IPA style for fans of Fat Tire or Sunshine Wheat. Maybe then that person will move on to Great Divide's Titan IPA, Bell's Two Hearted, Odell IPA or some other better example of an IPA.

Ranger IPA should be available in all KC liquor stores that carry a wide variety of New Belgium beers. New Belgium has earned the trust to get you to buy at least a sixer of a new beer from them. You won't be blown away, but you won't feel cheated either. It's also on tap at the Flying Saucer if you don't want to commit $7.49/sixer.

Nobody Likes a Quitter Unless It's Brett Favre

Packers Fan Announces He Will Return To Drinking For Another Season
This guy reminds me of my college buddy Rowdy.