Ommegang's "Wild at Heart" (but you knew that), and the Actual Truth About Newburgh Brewing's "Bitter English".

Okay, to summarize the last few weeks, since my visit to Ommegang, where I discovered many interesting data points about their beers (for example, all Ommegang beer starts off life as a Pils, made with two row, grain from the fine folks at http://Briess.com/, which supplies breweries far and wide).

I managed to take home one of Ommegang's more unique creations, "Wild at Heart," which features a howling wolf lording over a tiny squirrel on the label, but upon tasting kind of reminds me more of the David Lynch movie from the early 90's, or, oddly enough, maybe just the kind of whiskey drinking anyone could see (and join) Nicholas Cage doing at Nell's on 14th Street around that time.   This is a thin, boozy flavored ale.

I'm not going to say medicinal, jarring or that in any way were their off flavors, but it was thin, tart, somewhat fruity.  And I'd say this thoroughly "ethanolicious" or "ethanolacious" (depending on how you feel about the taste of a beer with a highly above average, ABV flavor, which carries up through one's nose to alert one's brain to the fact you need to "go slow").   It's an ale, made with wild yeast in primary fermentation, which is later hopped up with just enough Motueka and Topaz hops to remind you that it's beer, and not hard cider,  or say, toilet wine, depending where life's lead you.

Delicious?  Amazing?  Certainly, if you enjoy high powered, thin Belgian style beer.  If you enjoy thin, light, American commercial beer under say, 100 calories, so you can fit into your skinny jeans, you may be shocked and awed by this "audacious" beer (as the commercial description puts it) that this audacious brewery has harvested from the forests of Cooperstown, NY.  This is a good time to note my strong sentiment that Ommegang does have some of the best advertising copy of all the beer label I've read.

Here's the Beijing Consensus on Ommegang's "Wild at Heart":

• http://beeradvocate.com/community/threads/ommegang-wild-at-heart-american-wild-ale.98667/
• http://beeradvocate.com/beer/profile/42/104109
• http://www.ratebeer.com/beer/ommegang-wild-at-heart/218172/

We're talking an "83" from the unwashed masses at Beer Advocate, and 3.5 out of 5 from Joe T's beer syndicate at Ratebeer.com.  I think Wild at Heart is probably well better than all that noise, but who are any of us to argue with our crowed sourced reality, right?

And that opens a very interesting can of worms about accounting for the taste of beer as much as it does for accounting for tastes in wine.

Reasonable people may disagree on matters of taste, but I say the kind of feedback these beer rating sites provide are a damn sight better than the kind of subjective, cooked up reviews people turn to from Robert Parker's pen in "the bible of wine... blah blah blah", as the CBS Sunday Morning put it last week (citing a review of a wine in The Wine Spectator).

This is just a disruptive photo of Newburgh Brewery's epic, outstanding and extraordinary "Bitter English" that I recently drank, enjoyed and shot, along with the outside wall and their big inside beer hall (for detail, now see here, old boy: http://www.newburghbrewing.com/beers/bitter-english/)

And here's a Guardian story which makes brief mention of how "Orley Ashenfelter, a Princeton economist, invented a simple mathematical formula based on weather data to predict the price of vintages, which mimicked the predictions of Parker’s system," even if there's probably more to the story than that, mate.  

http://www.theguardian.com/lifeandstyle/2013/jun/23/wine-tasting-junk-science-analysis

As I heard tell, it's more like Ashenfelter's work mocked more than "mimicked" Parker's bible, after Ashenfelter basically started a very small journal concerning wine economics (and it's linkage to agriculture) which quietly annd quickly change the entire industry (valuations of wine) inside just 10 years (as all commercial bidders came to subscribe and adopted his algorithm the way the Oakland A's, Boston's Sox and Moneyball changed Baseball scouting).   

Obviously what crowds think, feel and believe matters, making it a fools errand to try to dictate taste in the face of 50,000 Swedes.  But one can describe, and show, like this photo of Newburgh Brewery, which has many outstanding, fresh beer choices on the Western banks of New York's Mid Hudson Valley, just 1 1/2 hours from NYC.  The skinny is that the brewer has many years of experience a Brooklyn Brewery, where he clearly paid attention. 

This is just one of Peekskill Brewery's tasty thin, toasty Dark, Dry ales, which you'll find down river and across from Newburgh on the Hudson Harlem line about 1 hour North of NYC.  The brewer here also knows a thing or two about a thing or two in and of the beverage arts.

Orley Ashenfelter's advise on accounting for the taste of wine:
http://www.liquidasset.com/tasting.html

Farewell Belgian Pale Ale, We Hardly Knew Ye Downstate from Ommegang

It's Ommegang is probably the first name in New York craft beer, and well worth the long ride to get to Cooperstown, NY.

I had one of the last keds of Ommegang Belgian Pale Ale, which was both malty and all hopped up with Centennial, as I recall. And it was just about perfectly balanced to the malt-- no, I can't lie-- it was perfect. 

It was grand, as you can see in the photo below. In fact, I nearly didn't get to photographic because I was gulping it down like a kid slurping Pepsi at a Star Wars Film Festival.  Look at that color and lacing on that glass, you lovers of lacing.

Sadly, we were told on touring the brewing and bottle areas that this beer is being retired for a new dry hopped style.  So stay tuned on that front.

The food was also grand, if not all that "Amazing & Delicious" you're probably hearing about:  ham and cheese sandwich, lentil soup, frits and Belgian chocolate with hot pepper on top.  Really very good brew pub food too, in a great setting too.  The grounds are vast, and do double duty as a concert area in Summer.

Sure, the dudes were a little distracted and forgot a few things the old folks ordered (hot chocolate) because they were busy upselling us Lambics and 3 Philosophers.  But what we got, hit the spot to be sure.

Ommegang does 40,000 barrels per year, and it all starts right here, with two row, Wisconsin malted Pils barely, after which they add their roasty adjuncts, well placed hops and Belgian fairy dust.  Many of their beers are bottle conditioned.  So it was interesting to see their yeast harvesting area too, and even the 3 pot Sabco tucked away in the corner that they use to test new flavors.

I don't feel like I'm going out on a limb here, but I'm pretty sure the beer made by Brouwerij Duvel Moortgat, NV's is the best beer on Earth.  So it's nice that Ommegang in New York has them as a parent company.  It also means American craft brewers have to elevate their game.  It's not as if you just have to make high AVB beers that tastes better than giant beer-soda makers A-B Inbev and SAB MillerCoors anymore. That have to deal with the Belgians, and these Godzilla Ales they are putting out from the mountains not far from Cooperstown, NY.   

 What's more, the employees told us that they routinely meet with the family that has owned Duvel since the 1800's (and that they "are really cool"), so there seems to be no danger that this brand will lose its luster the way the thin, dull, bland "king of beers" did, as was recounted by William Knoedelseder's excellent book about the shocking history and pronounced fall of Budweiser.  Nobody is asleep at the switches here.




Here's some detail about the BPA:
http://www.ommegang.com/#!beer_bpa