Yazoo Pale Ale, Bottled

Nice giant head, beautiful clear carmel color, dry hoppy aroma with a nice balanced sweet malt flavor against the bitter a "newly discovered" Amarillo hop their cooking in with the tasty malt.  It's obvious that the very #meh Wheat beer I had on tap the other night was a bar room delivery system problem and not the brewer, which makes "FAD" beer (or "fine, 'amazing' and 'delicious'")  here in nashville. 

I might like one or more additional more hop flavors to round out the Amarillo, but that's what "black and tan" style beer mixing is for, right?  

Yadzoo Hefeweizen at Broadway Brewhouse in Nashville

No froth or aroma, mild clove flavored malt which was wiped out but the lemon.   Either a unrinsed glass or poor line management made this local Nashville Wheat Beer more #meh than not. 

Beer Pumps for Cask Beer

Birreria serves 3 Cask fermented beers at any given time.  In order to do so they use a beer pump delivery device, which is pretty impressive in and of itself.  It's kind of hard to make "real beer" without this kind of old timey gizmo that was replaced by CO2.

Bad Delaware Grapes Make Bad Wine

It's just that simple.  I acquired a 5 gallons of Delaware juice, added some voracious and excellent Lavin EC-118, and hoped for the best.  Guess what?  There is no Easter Bunny either.  

This was to be a dessert wine, because the flavors are typically geared for a sweater taste, without the foxy flavors of other native grapes to the North East and Midwest.

Very disappointing result with a batch of bad must that's not even suitable for vinegar.  

Garbage in, garbage out, or maybe it's more like dumpster juice in, dumpster juice out.  

Luckily I've got 20 gallons of the other stuff-- "foxy", musky, sexy native Catawba, Concord and Niagara that's turned out well, just in time to wash back Easter lamb parts.

Le Baladin Wayan Sour at Birreria (and the 80s Music)

Here's another awesome amber sour I had at Birreria, which seems to be getting absurd mixed reviews on Beer Advocate.   No accounting for taste I suppose.

Everything I had there was just bursting with flavor, including this sour, well balanced beautifully colored and carbonated La Baladin Waylan, on tap. I used it to wash back a plate of cured meats.  This Matterino "Teo" Musso is as serious with his herbals as any Joe on Beer Advocate is about his six packs.  For example, according to the commercial information on this beer:

"Baladin Wayan is made of 17 different ingredients (barley, wheat, spelt, oats, rye, different types of hops and many different spices besides coriander."

In opening his brewery in the Piedmont region of Italy back in 1996, Teo was advised by Jean-Louis Dits of La Brasserie à Vapeur in Pipaux, Belgium and Christian Vanhaverbeke, who had experience at Chimay, Union Grimberger and Achouffe, and thus he's learned a few things from a few people who know what's what by any measure. 

"Wayan" is also Teo's daughter, so basically "that's [his] daughter in the water".   In Morocco, Teo established Riad Baladin http://www.riadbaladin.com in case you're stuck for ideas about where to take your next vacation. 

Meanwhile, I'm going to go ahead and let those grouches grumble among themselves on Beer Advocate, after sampling the quality and variety of beer offered here, I'll be going back on the regular, for sure.  

The only true problem I could find for myself with Birreria was the 80's music, rocking the bar.  And it was relentlessly queer, which I mean purely in the odd sense.  Whoever selects the music... well, maybe they are trying to pull in more women, who love those sounds, but seriously, it was tough to take after the first 3 dozen songs.   

I mean really, Rick Springfield?  Syria?

Birreria's Wanda.on the Roof at Eataly

If you like #craftbeer and you're in NYC, you need to monkey your hind quarters up to the roof at Eataly on 23rd, because every beer I had, with the cured meats I ordered was outstanding enough to rave about. 

For example, this is Wanda, a chestnut fermented ale. 

Odorless, dark, mild, slightly dry, and creamy mouth feel. It's a chestnut ale, cooked up by struggling rap artist, but Rock Star Brewer, Sam Calagione (Dogfish Head), Leo di Vincenzo (Birra del Borgo) and Teo Musso (Baladin) and executed by Peter Hepp, head brewer.  Don't know if it's the dude with all the wild tats helping out behind the bar, but I saw him there in the Nano brewery area near the stairs.

What freaked me out a little was this: though darker, this beer has the same dry tannic quality that my last Honey Pumpkin #homebrewing project had, if somewhat more creamy and without any hoppy aroma or bitterness.  But similarly earthy all the same.

At this point it was a little too soon to just concluded that Berreria and their birraz are awesome, epic, delicious and amazing, but after spending most of the night sampling the balance of their cask beers, including a peppercorn flavored deal and then a thyme flavored number, from a actual cask, on tap, via the beer pump, which the British call "Real Beer", it's safe to say that Dogifish Head ain't Nothing to F with!   

Yet and still, my feeling is that Sam Calagione won't really make it here in old NY until he does a "WU Tang Clan 40oz Park Hill Pils" and pours a little out with RZA for The Ol' Dirt Dog. Brooklyn-- Zoo!   

Homebrewed Honey Pumpkin Cranberry Spruce Ale

Home Brewed Honey Pumpkin Cranberry Ale

This Home brewed, Honey Pumpkin Cranberry ale was hopped with Spruce, Willamete and Chinook hops. The aroma is right there, as you'd expect with enough of these fine, if ignoble hops, slightly bitter but very tasty, if I don't say so myself, which I did, so there's that.  I brewed it, so naturally, the bias is in the boil.   

It came in at roughly 7% AVB, but not too hot to miss the spot.

It has a nice froth, and deep dark color because I used dark malt in addition to all the fun with adjuncts, which included Wisconsin clover honey, fresh and canned pumpkin, and cranberry juice.  The flavor is well balanced to the spruce and hops, if somewhat of more thin and dry than say, a milky stout, and more like a porter, as the malt was replaced with these other elements.  I guess I want to take notice of the dry, rough mouthfeel that I presume the pumpkin's tannins left behind in this batch.

It's said that tannins create greater friction on mouth surfaces in various wines that are high in tannins, or as I've found out: "Tannins are thought to taste astringent because they bind with salivary proline-rich proteins and precipitate them out. This leads to increased friction between mouth surfaces, and a sense of dryness or roughness."

I imagine that's what's happened here to leave such a dry flavor in this ale.

But what's really really worth writing home about are how this beer got legs when paired with a fermented cauliflower-horse radish, cabbage kraut, which has been sitting several months.  The sour, acidic flavor was perfectly balanced with the strange if not radical adjunct ale project.  It made a nice after dinner snack, and will again, since I have 5 gallons, and several jars of kraut to wash down. 

Admittedly, I mixed a little old ale with the new one, which dashed the froth, but transferred fresh flavor to the second half of the first growler out of the fermentation bucket.  I even added a little Newburgh Paper Box IPA to change the hops profile (adding what tastes like 4 more), which was equally outstanding, if not more so.

I'm calling this bucket Little Bessie, because it's "a drunkard's dream if I ever did see one".

Peekskill Brewery's Amazeballs

On first look the froth and color are perfectly tuned.

Hoppy aroma is striking like the teamster; very nice, outstanding really.  The smell is bright, with a spruce feeling that's not very bitter.  Word has it, they used galaxy, which were put to good use.

The taste imparts a balanced mouth feel, without a lot of heat.  I like it.

This is great stuff and worth a trip for a growler and a pint while you wait.

Barrier Mare Undarum Belgium IPA

Odorless, but wait, Tammy says it smells floral and I think she is right upon second snort because I'll tell you something, I've had a few.  The flavor is smokey and wonderful.  I'm not tasting the clove they are all writing about on Beer Advocate. 

Peekskill Brewery's Stout

In spite of my shaky, buzzed, blurry photo of it, Peekskill Brewery's stout is delicious. 

Yeah, I know, "delicious" is a word you hear a lot from the foodies and the "brewies" these days, like amazing, or say, "amaaaaaazig", but sometimes it just fits like good shoes.

And of course, other times it kind of fits more like the flight suit that Baby Bush wore for his televised arrival aboard the USS Lincoln the day he declared "Mission accomplished" 2003.  You know, more #derps than delish. 

Not the case here at the Peekskill Brewery. Once again, these dudes rocked out with their hops out.

Nice dark color, tight frothy head, creamy malty flavor, a little like cool liquid embers, smoked.  Not to blurt, but I bet it would wash down various fish well, the way smoky flavor improves some of them (trout-salmon).  Not too sweet or bitter. The stuff is awesome and if you avoid it, you'll have nobody to blame but yourself... or maybe Saddam (like the "mission accomplished" bit in paragraph 3... in comedy, that's an example of a "call back").  

The beer is great there, but they need more TVs (kind of hard to see the March Madness on just two screens from big areas inside of the bar).

The Alchemist's Heady Topper Double IPA

The black ink graphic on the silver bullet can takes you back to the 70's via the kind of art work that always seemed to include a moon, some stars, a wizard and a mushroom.  But if you think you're in a time machine, you'd better think more like "Back to the Future", because this is in no way the resurrection Billy Beer. 

The Alchemist's simple, no frills website describes the flavor as imparting wave after wave of hops, the result of a proprietary blend of six hops.  And that's a good metaphor. Though the subject of much speculation, what hops, where they are grown, or at what schedule they are added to the boil is not disclosed.  However, they do mention that it's 8%, making it a heavy pint. 

On the pour, it's a cloudy golden color, as you can see, and the froth isn't dramatic after say, half the glass is gone (which is fast, since this stuff is like liquid crack), making it just right.  The aroma, and flavor-- also just right, with subtle, distinct, lingering hops to the nose, and wonderfully balanced malt flavor to big, sexy hop flavors, but not at all bitter, all of which makes this a kind of a Goldy Locks and the Three Bears Double IPA.  I kept thinking "this is the kind of beer you would expect after watching those comical Sam Adam's commercials that featured "a pound of hops in every batch", with high def. images of hops piled high in the brewery." 

You can't seem to buy this stuff anywhere, ever, unless you drive to Vermont, which may be another good excuse to take the time to actually go skiing before spring kicks in.  We sampled a glass with Kenny (offsite), who owns one of the best craft beer bars in New York City on West 23rd Street, AKA the Guilty Goose, which is always lined with beer geeks and hop groupies, if you're ever looking for a good beer debate. 

Pripps Carlsberg Carnegie Porter

Okay, well this Justin, at Beer Table in Brooklyn, standing next to an outstanding porter he's pouring there this week, brewed by Pripps-Carlsberg Sverige Carnegie Porter 

Carnegie Porter.  Justin worked as a distributor for several years, and now maintains a nice small space in the Prospect Park area of Bklyn along 7th Avenue (not far from the F Train for you Public transporters).  

Beer Table is a really nice small space where you can get real beer in Brooklyn. So a nod is as good as a wink to a blinded bat, yes?

Very dark porter, with an average head that did not stick around for the photo shoot next to the electric table lantern, but then this beer just sneaks up on you like basing jumping, Airborne Ranger delivering the flowers you forgot for your best girl as you're walking up to her building, with its mildly sweet, malty and perfectly balanced slight hopped aroma, and a thick mouth feel, like that of a stout.  In fact, I'd bet a case that most people would identify it as a stout, if they were not told it's labeled a porter.  My first reaction right down to the last drop was that "this beer is perfect", so there's that.  Although, the second one tasted more sweet to me, after pairings with some of the excellent olives Beer Table serves. 

Newburgh Brewing Company's Paper Box Pale Ale

This is a new production brewery overlooking the Hudson River on the banks of scenic Newburgh, NY.  

Don't laugh, or mock it, Bro. Just because the leaders in Newburgh strictly obeyed General George Washington when he told them: "Do nothing until I return", is no reason to slander, chide or deride this epic city.  

Now, you want to know what makes Newburgh epic these days  now?  Ask Christopher Basso, who spent half-a-dozen years at Brooklyn Brewery, or just try the Newburgh Brewing Company's Paper Box Pale Ale-- BOOM! 

Outstanding color, aroma, froth and flavor.  I took a growler home two weeks ago, put it in a cold garage and it just got better with time.  The strong but mild hoppy flavor and aroma are extraordinary, kind of like George Washington, who slept about 500 yards from the Newburgh Brewing.  The ABV is 7.1%, which will produce a founding father's grade buzz, which is great if you want to forget that you have wooden teeth.  I hate to say it, because Tony MaGee is a great guy, but it looks like Langunitis is going to face a little "Maine Justice" in these parts, along the shores of the Hudson.  I'm not sure what magical, mystical wizardry Basso is employing, but it sure doesn't taste like extracts, and if they are using them, well, then I'll pay for the 400cc's Dr. Sizemore! 

In point of fact, for beer geeksters, after fetching the specs from their website just now, it looks like they are using the following hops :  Phoenix, East Kent Goldings, Fuggles, Sovereign, Styrian Goldings, Whole Leaf East Kent Goldings (via our hopback); dry-hopped using Phoenix and Sovereign.   

I'd highly recommended, so naturally you should go get some... or stubbornly wait until everyone you know is slurping it down to cut through the sausage grease at a NY Jets or Giants tailgate party next fall and you're like the last dude holding a Budwizzer.  Whatever.  I warned you. 

Green Growler in Croton, NY has it about now.  Note: as you can see, this was golden, and the American "Paper Box Pale Ale" as reviewed, is said to be more amber, so I'm not sure what I was served (Maybe the English style Pale Ale, with the Paper Box name), but let's just say it was as was labeled, or get both and compare.  Obviously, they aren't making Black Label, and seem to know what they are doing. 

Ommagang Wit at Pour George

Coudy, not much froth.  Mildly sour aroma, bitter, not very banana, clovered, but more citrus.  Not a lot to ballyhoo on this pour.

Don't know if it's the lines or the glass, but I suspect there's a little inattentiveness at times.  

Salt, Sugar, Fat. Times Intereview with Michael Moss on his new book about processed foods

If there's any doubt that salt, sugar and fat are master drivers of food sales, Michael Moss' new book should sort all those doubts out lickety split.   Here's a very tasty nugget from his interview with the Health page of the NYTimes:

Were you surprised by how many scientists and food company executives avoid their own products?

It was everything from a former top scientist at Kraft saying he used to maintain his weight by jogging, and then he blew out his knee and couldn’t exercise, his solution was to avoid sugar and all caloric drinks, including all the Kool-Aid and sugary drinks that Kraft makes. It ranged from him to the former top scientist at Frito Lay. I spent days at his house going over documents relating to his efforts at Frito Lay to push the company to cut back on salt. He served me plain, cooked oatmeal and raw asparagus for lunch. We toured his kitchen, and he did not have one single processed food product in his cupboards or refrigerator.

Read more: http://healthland.time.com/2013/02/26/salt-sugar-fat-qa-with-author-michael-moss/#ixzz2MR3bfX00

Spiegelau IPA Glass Launch With Dogfish Head and Sierra Nevada

PB's Hop Common

You can see, it's dark, and has a nice frothy head, thanks to the right draft equipment at the new Peekskill Brewery Brew Pub... "PBBP", go ahead, say it a few times fast before and after one of these. 

No aroma, like some anonymous, unmarked cup of cold coffee sitting left on a job site, not boastful, offering up hoppy promises. No smell.  No indication that there's mad flavor in there, yo. 

Flavor on the other hand, packs a punch, like the quiet guy who's no talk but turns out to be all action--   nice balanced malt with mildly bitter hops.  

This beer is great, and your crazy to drink that bottled multinational stuff and pass this by.

Allagash White

Bananas (the good kind)! 

Clover and banana flavors, like, somewhat cloudy, nice froth, you know what they say these days:  "delicious amazing, delicious, amazing, delicious, amazing, delicious". 

Sometimes they are right. 

Laird's Apple Jack

This was ordered by mistake, a very awzome, happy and Excellent mistake.  Best congyack ever, by Laird's of New Jersey, one of America's longest  apple wine and overall fermenting experts.

Redonkulous flavor.  Very good stuff.