Angry Planet

Pale Ale

I'm a fan of Saint Paul's Flat Earth Brewing Company. Their Winter Warlock ale is really nice (and strong!) and their Cygnus X-1 Porter is a fine example of a porter. Unfortunately, I just can't get behind their Angry Planet pale ale.

 

It has the two characteristics I think of as being the defining traits of a bad microbrew- an unpleasant aftertaste caused by using an overabundance of hops, and a flavor reminiscent of orange peels. I'm well aware that some people like it, but I just don't buy it. Is there any great beer-making tradition in the entire world based on creating beer that tastes like orange peels? If there is, I can't think of one.

As far as I know, this is something you only ever find in American microbrews, and I think I might know why. Being all too aware of the longstanding reputation of American beers as being “damn closed to water,” our brewers have overcompensated, by trying too hard to make their beers “intense.” The unfortunate result of this is that our beers are still not well-respected by a lot of discerning beer drinkers from countries with more established traditions of brewing really great beers. They used to think of American beer as being watery; now they think it tastes like orange peels. It's not an improvement!

 

Flat Earth is not to blame for this situation, merely for buying into it with this particular beer. I highly recommend their other beers I've listed above, and I think they really know how to make a good beer. Just not an “intense” one!

 

 

 

Bass

The Red Triangle

There are beers for when you want a really special experience, and then there are everyday drinking beers. You don't really want them to be the same, because the more “gourmet” beers tend to have powerful, complex flavors that are better appreciated as a special experience. Drinking them every day would be like going out to a fancy restaurant every single night- you'd probably get jaded pretty quickly.

One of the all-time great everyday drinking beers is Bass pale ale, the favorite beer of Napoleon. Bass is also the beer they had with them on the Titanic, as well as the Shackleton Antarctic expedition, so maybe it's not a “good luck” beer. But it is a very tasty beer. Apparently when they invented it back in the 1770s, everybody was drinking stout and porter, so pale ale was seen as a thrilling innovation.

 

I first had a Bass when I tried to order Newcastle Brown Ale at my local pub, was told they were all out, and asked them if they had any other English beers. At first I thought it was nothing special, but then I found myself craving another one the whole next week, and when I returned to the same pub I ordered Bass by preference. I've been drinking it ever since. Their red triangle logo is so distinctive it can even be found in a Manet painting, and other brewers would try to copy it. To protect their brand, the Bass brewery registered that red triangle as England's first trademark.

 

 

 

 

The Creative Buzz - How Light Drinking Boosts Mental Skills

New study finds that being legally tipsy can improve problem-solving abilities
There's an xkcd comic that jokes that a very narrow window of blood alcohol content drastically strikes your programming ability. But could a little buzz actually make you smarter? A new study indicates that there's more truth to that strip that we had previously realized. 
 
Andrew Jarosz, a psychology graduate student at the University of Illinois at Chicago, conducted an experiment with the help of his colleagues that demonstrates that being tipsy might actually boost your creativity and problem-solving skills before it reduces them. They got 20 social drinkers buzzed on vodka cranberry mixed drinks (in the name of science!), then asked them to complete a word association problem solving task. They were shown sets of three words each and had to come up with a fourth word that would make a phrase in English out of each of them. The tipsy fellows completed nine out of 15 sets on average, while the control group of 20 sober dudes could only solve about six of the 15 problems. Sober men took also took about four seconds longer to come up with their answers.
 
It seems as though a little social lubrication also serves to loosen the brain gears effectively. Psychologists hypothesize that the same lack of inhibition that makes you feel more comfortable socializing while intoxicated could also allow you to see patterns in places that your sober mind might not allow you to see. Your thoughts are looser, so your mind lets itself look for solutions in unlikely corners instead of just taking familiar routes.
 
Does this study mean that you should pre-game for your next English exam? Depends, but probably not--unless you're really very restrained in your boozing. The test subjects in Jarosz's experiment only got to a blood alcohol concentration of 0.075 percent, meaning that they were still good to drive legally at the time that they were completing the study. So while having half a beer before your next test might conceivably help you do better, you're going to have to make sure you keep your tipsiness within very specific parameters.
 
It's also been shown that drinking isn't the only method of warming up your mind to solving problems and thinking more efficiently. There are clean ways to get the same effect. Preliminary evidence shows that watching a movie or show that makes you feel good boosts your creativity as well. It seems that upping your mood ups your brain power no matter what the source. 

Lion Stout

And Cygnus X-1 Porter

The local liquor stores have been suffering from an acute lack of Russian Imperial Stout lately, so I decided to try out “Lion Stout” from Sri Lanka. The label is a colorful and striking image of a lion's head, so the bottle is visually appealing. On the way home from the store, I was joking with my wife that we could earn lots of street cred as beer snobs if we become exclusively devotees of Sri Lankan stout. Obscurity is the key to superior hipness, after all.

My wife took a sip of the Lion, looked up, and said “it's a good stout for a country where you wouldn't expect them to make stout.” I tasted it a moment later, and my conclusion was about the same. It doesn't have quite as much character or flavor as I would like, but it's a very drinkable stout. So I won't be adopting an exclusively Sri Lankan stout policy no matter how hip it would be, but I do recommend it.

 

We also tried the local Flat Earth Brewing Company's “Cygnus X-1 Porter,” and I would call this one a hit. Porter and stout are awfully similar- the truth is, I'm not really sure what the specific difference between them is supposed to be, although they are clearly not quite the same. This porter is a fine specimen, and particularly good for a local microbrew. I'll be trying out more of the Flat Earth beers soon, because they seem to know what they're doing when it comes to beer.

 

 

 

Harvest Dance Wheat Wine

And Krampus

“Harvest Dance Wheat Wine” from Boulevard Beers is one of those wheaty, fruity beers I don't normally prefer. As one might gather from the frequency with which Russian Imperial Stout appears in this blog, I'm a black beer guy. I'm not close-minded about other types of beer, though- I enjoy a lot of different flavors. This week I decided to try the wheat wine, just to introduce a little variety.

The impression I had on my first sip is that this was a very good beer. Yes, it does taste kind of fruity, but the flavors are nicely balanced and very pleasant. The only bad side, and I think it's typical of this type of beer, is that it's also very foamy. This makes it a heavy beer when you try to drink more than half a pint of it, and as it gets heavier and heavier, the flavor also becomes cloying.

 

If you want to really enjoy this beer, I would suggest drinking only a small glass of it at any one sitting. That way you'll get the most of the fruit flavors without being overwhelmed by them.

 

I also tried out “Krampus,” a beer named after a sort of Anti-Santa of European folklore. Krampus is supposed to have a goatlike appearance, and a stick with which to beat naughty little boys and girls. Well, I must have done something wrong, because drinking this beer was a little too much like getting beaten up by an evil goat monster. Which is just my way of saying that Krampus is a really disgusting beer, and I would avoid it if I was you. Brewers of America, “intensity” and “character” are not always the same thing! The art of brewing is about balancing the different flavors, not walloping me about the head with one or two of them just so you can say your beer is “in my face”!

 

 

 

Unibroue Beers

Damned, Terrible- And Delicious!

“Unibroue” is a Quebecois brewery in the Belgian tradition, using the typical Belgian brewing method of beer “on lees.” What this means is that the beer is re-fermented in the bottle for a stronger brew and a more complex flavor.

 

Unibroue beers include “Terrible” (pronounced something like “tereeb”- remember, it's in French!) which is as black as stout but tastes completely different, “Maudite” (meaning “damned,” which makes this the ultimate Goth beer!), “Fin du Monde” (or “end of the world”) and “Don de Dieu.”

Unibroue definitely has a flair for the dramatic, as you can probably tell by the names alone. The labels of some of their beers are equally theatrical. Maudite's label features a beautiful illustration of a local Quebecois legend in which a canoe full of Voyageurs (frontier traders) sells their souls to the Devil in order to be able to fly their canoe across the sky.

 

But what about the beer? Well, it depends on your tastes. If you enjoy your beer German-style (foamy, golden and easy on the palate) these will probably be a bit overwhelming. All of the Unibroue beers have that powerful Belgian complexity to them. As for me, that's right up my alley. I've been developing something like an obsession for Russian Imperial Stout lately, but I had a bottle of Terrible on Thursday night and was very glad I did. The Belgian style of brewing is always going to be high on my list.

 

 

Gouden Carolus

A Great Belgian Beer

When I picked up a bottle of Gouden Carolus at the St Anthony liquor store, the sales clerk commented that I had just purchased “one of the classic Belgian beers.” Now, I'm a big fan of Belgian beers, and have been ever since I went to Belgium about ten years ago. So I brought the Gouden Carolus straight home to be opened up and enjoyed.

The first thing I noticed was the color. Gouden Carolus is a very rich shade of dark golden-brown. It's quite a beautiful color, but I don't buy beer to hang it on my wall, so I didn't spend all that much time gazing at it before beginning to drink.

 

I love it when I taste a beer and immediately think “oh wow.” This was one of those moments. Gouden Carolus has an almost perfectly-balanced flavor, with just a hint of molasses in there somewhere and all of the complexity you expect in a Belgian beer.

 

I'm not the kind of beer blogger who could tell you all the tiny nuances of flavor in this or any other beer. I'm a drinker, not a connoisseur. I think of beer-drinking as an aesthetic/spiritual experience involving and engaging the mind and body on multiple levels, but that doesn't mean I like to talk about it. Sniff out every hint of every flavor if you have that skill; I just want to bask in the glory of drinking a delicious beer and enjoying that golden glow in good company.

 

And Gouden Carolus is glorious indeed.

 

 

 

Czechvar

This "Bud" Is For Czech People

“Budweiser,” in America, is a brand of beer, but in Europe it's a name for a type of beer. When Czech immigrants brought this type of beer to the United States, they watered it down (sadly) for the American market, but brewers in their Czech homeland continued to make the original Budweiser in the traditional way.

One of these brewers still does so under the brand name of “Budweiser Budvar,” but they're not allowed to use that name in America because it's trademarked. So the same beer is marketed as “Czechvar” in the United States, with a logo and product description designed to send the subtle message that Czechvar is the “real” Budweiser.

 

I prefer ales to lagers, and beers with rich and complex flavors to beers that just go down the gullet smooth and easy. So I may not be the best judge of Czechvar in the first place, but here's my opinion for what it's worth.

 

It tastes something like American Budweiser. It's better than American Budweiser. It's still kind of boring. Why is that? Because lagers in this style don't emphasize the flavor, they emphasize the golden foamy refreshingness of their beer. The whole point of this kind of lager is to be smooth and drinkable. I happen to like beers that have more to say to me than that, so it's not my kind of beer. But if you like that kind of beer, it's worth a try, if only to see what Budweiser is supposed to taste like.

 

 

 

The Stoic

Great Beer For A Great Philosophy

The two most significant Stoic philosophers were Epictetus and Marcus Aurelius- the former a slave, and the latter a Roman emperor, making Stoicism literally a philosophy of slaves and emperors. This dichotomy is matched in Deschutes Breweries beer “The Stoic,” part of which is aged in Pinot Noir barrels while part is aged in whiskey barrels.

This might sound a little pretentious to you- it did to me- but you can actually taste both flavors in the beer. There's a little hint of a wine taste and a little hint of a whiskey taste, making this one of the most complex-tasting beers I have ever enjoyed. I highly recommend you try a bottle, because it's not like anything else I can think of but it tastes really good.

 

On the philosophical side, though, I'm not so sure. I initially wanted to compare the wine taste to one of the two big names of Stoicism, and the whiskey taste to the other- but how would I go about it? Is wine in some way like a slave-turned-philosopher, or is whiskey in some way imperial? Or is it the other way around? In pondering these weighty questions as I drank my beer, I began to notice a larger problem.

 

The ideal of Stoicism is a state of serene dispassion. After drinking a glass of the Stoic I did feel more serene, but I cannot say I felt less passionate. In fact, due to the rather high alcohol content of this brew, the second glass began to make me more jovial than serene, and the third glass made me more talkative than dispassionate. So, while I am delighted with the beer itself, I'm afraid it will not contribute at all to your quest for Stoic sagehood.

 

 

Choklat Stout

Is it Really Necessary?

Dark chocolate and stout make a wonderful combination. Whenever I crack open a bottle of Imperial stout, I like to have a square or two of dark chocolate to eat while I drink it. Now that's what I call luxury!

The question is this- can chocolate and stout actually be combined together into a chocolate-flavored stout? We already know that these are two tastes that go very well together, so why not just combine them into a single thing?

 

Southern Tier Brewing Company makes an Imperial stout with chocolate in it, and they call it Choklat. I tried a bottle of it the other week, but I'm still not sure exactly what I think of it. They didn't go too light on the chocolate, I'll give them that. It has a very strong flavor of rich, dark chocolate.

 

So why am I not quite convinced? Well, call me old-fashioned, but I'm not really sure about the whole idea of flavored beer in the first place. I had a second bottle of Imperial stout without any chocolate in it on the same night, and I didn't enjoy it any less as a beer just because it didn't have the chocolate. So what does the chocolate really add?

 

For now, I think, I'll just keep right on doing it the way I've always done it before. A bar of chocolate, a pint glass, and a bottle of stout, each to be applied in its own proper way. A place for everything, and everything in its place.

 

 

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