Crimes Against Beer: Heineken Ignorance

While avoiding work earlier this week, a post on BeerAdvocate brought to light criminally ignorant beer knowledge being sold on the Heinekem website:

What is lager?
Lager is a generic name for all sorts of light-colored beers. The name comes from Germany and means “stored” beer. Strangely enough it is not brewed in Germany but is found almost exclusively in English-speaking countries.

Somewhere in the heavens The Beer Gods are crying. Off in Germany, brewers are spitting their lager in disgust. And me, well, I'm just shaking my head in disgust. This is why you let PR people handle vital information.

For anyone wondering, here's the skinny from Wikipedia:

Lager is distinguished from ale by its yeast. Lager yeast ferments at colder temperatures and flocculates on the bottom of the fermenting vessel, while ale yeast ferments at warmer temperatures and settles on the tops of fermentation tanks. The organism most often associated with lager brewing is Saccharomyces pastorianus, a close relative of Saccharomyces cerevisiae.

Basically it's one of two types of yeast strains used for making beer. It's still made in great abundance in Germany, as well as the rest of the world. In fact, I read recently that about 95% of all beer in the world is lager.

Here's a quick run-down of my take on the infamous green-bottled beer:

Heineken Lager
Heineken International
Euro Pale Lager

C / 2.95
look: 3 | smell: 2.5 | taste: 3 | feel: 3 | drink: 3.5

When fresh and not skunked, this isn't too bad a beer. Unfortunately, the signature green bottles don't block out light like brown glass, and UV rays trash the beautiful hop oils. Otherwise it's inoffensive, light and a bit fruity. Not too much adjunct flavor or flaws like corny DMS, but also almost no trace of malt or hops. Easy drinking and I wouldn't refuse a free one, but it'll be a cold day in hell when I pay for one.

A Bacon-Wrapped Night

Mmm... Bacon...

Saturday night my house held Swinefest to honor a roommate that's heading back to LA to finish grad school. She's likes bacon, the rest of us like bacon, one thing led to another and the party turned into a bacon-wrapped throwdown. Deliciously distgusting, no?

For my part I made a couple dozen bacon-wrapped dates a la a recipe I picked up from Men's Health Living.

18 Medjool dates
18 Marcona Almonds
1/4 lb. bacon (9 strips)
1/4 lb. Valdeon cheese (I subbed St. Agur, any shhttp://www.blogger.com/img/gl.link.gifapeable blue works)

Pit the dates and stuff with an almond and cheese. Wrap with a half slice of bacon and hold together with a wood toothpick. Bake in an oven at 425F for 7-10 minutes.

Also available were bacon-wrapped hot dogs, jalepenos, shrimp, and asparagus. There was also non bacon-based foods, for the few non-bacon enthusiasts, and while they were damn tasty, they couldn't match the pork products.

Among the beers I paired with the bacon-wrapped victuals, I found Cane & Ebel from Two Brothers Brewing to be the best match. The bite of the citrus American hops with the rye spice tasted like it was just made for such a night.


Cane & Ebel
Two Brothers Brewing Co.

B+ / 3.95
look: 3.5 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4.5 | drink: 4

A dark red with an off-tan head, poor retention and little lacing. The aroma is very herbal with that rye spice. The flavor immediately reminds me of Red's Rye from Founder's, for obvious reasons. It's a big, but not too harsh citrus tang. As satisfying as any good IPA or hopped red ale, but with that wonderful rye twist to make it stand out. Worth a try. Quite tasty.

Beer Review at the Ballpark: Shock Top Belgian White (so they call it)

Thanks to a roommate I got to experience Pennsylvania's newest AAA baseball team, the Lehigh Valley Iron Pigs. Aside from occasionally resembling the Bad News Bears, the game wasn't too bad considering they had decent beer at an almost decent price. In the interest of trying every beer in the world, I passed up the local micros for Anheuser-Busch's Shock Top Belgian White, formerly known as Spring Heat Spiced Wheat.

Beer Review
Shock Top Belgian White
Anheuser-Busch
C+ / 3.2
look: 2.5 | smell: 3.5 | taste: 3.5 | feel: 2.5 | drink: 3.5

On-tap for $5, not bad for a stadium.

Appeared a dark yellow with not head or lacing. So there's no complimentary foam and it's too dark. The aroma is of dry, spicy orange. The flavor has that same orange, with bland Belgian-like spice (corriander, pepper). The flavor and aroma aren't bad, certainly not normal for the style, but it's an overall agreeable experience. A real wit has more delicate spices with vanilla and mellow wheat. The body here is also surprisingly heavy, with a sort of medium strength. And the mouthfeel is a bit chaulky and salty. Well... it's better than the vast majority of A-B's beers.

Beer Review: Breckenridge 471 IPA

And now for what I think is an under-rated beer:

Small Batch 471 IPA
Breckenridge Brewery

I'd call this a nicely balanced DIPA, off the bat it reminds me of the DIPA from Capt. Lawrence. There isn't anything over the top and it's quite drinkable while maintaining a big hop flavor. The only thing it's lacking for me is a big bitter punch to the tongue.

The body is orange-amber with a short white head and lacing the aroma is a mix of biscuity malts with floral perfume and big grapefruit and tangerine. The flavor is both resinous and crisp - a nice pairing there - with more of a citrus zest flavor and a hint of grass.

This isn't the biggest DIPA, but it's got a very nice mix of hops flavors and is dangerously drinkable. Worth a try if you dig hops.

Beer Review: Ten Fidy

It's been a good couple weeks for beer drinking. I've tried a lot of tasty malt beverages as well as found a number of brews I'd been lusting after for months. In general, I find most beers don't live up to their hype. I've tried nearly 60 from the top 100 list on BeerAdvocate.com, and don't really feel like most of those beers are among the best 100 beers in the world. This holds even more true when I get beers close to the top, sure they're pretty amazing, but it's hard to accept that, for instance, only nine beers are better than Russian River's Pliny the Elder. Yes, it's damn tasty, but so are a lot of beers.

I say this because I recently had the pleasure of trying Ten Fidy from Oscar Blues, a Russian Imperial Stout I'd been hearing buzz about for a while but hadn't seen in the flesh. Well come last weekend it alluded me no more, and just a few days ago I sat down to drink it. Again, I found a tasty yet seemingly over-rated beer (#56 in the world). That's not really the beer's fault, so I hold no grudge. Besides, the black can is pretty sweet.

Ten Fidy
Oskar Blues Grill and Brewery

B+ / 4
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | drink: 4

Wow, it does pour like oil from a can. It's sitting pitch black and viscus in my glass with a short tan head.

The aroma is hoppy at first then I'm pulling out cracker and toasted biscuit with a light note of dark roasted grains. It tastes a lot like slightly watered down chocolate syrup in that its got a lot of cocoa with sweet sugary feel. The aftertaste has a hit of roasted brley along with citrus rind and grapefruit hops.

Overall, the flavor profile and aroma are different than the average RIS. And for a 10% beer, it's pretty drinkable and the alcohol is well hidden. However, for such a big beer, I'd expect bigger flavor.

Beer Review: Great Lakes Nosferatu

I'm still going through the goodies I picked up from Bocktown Beer and Grill outside Pittsburgh. For folks unfamiliar with Bocktown, it appears to be an unassuming strip-mall restaurant from the outside. However, once inside you're met with a long wall of beer coolers and a bar serving nothing but craft beer. In short, it's a bar chalked full of awesome beer that also serves up some tasty grub. Worth a visit for anyone in the area that loves beer. Anyways, here's my review of Nosferatu, one of the gems I got there to-go:

Nosferatu
Great Lakes Brewing Co.

B+ / 3.95
look: 4 | smell: 4 | taste: 4 | feel: 4 | drink: 3.5

Interesting - like a good strong ale should be. The main elements here are the chocolate biscuit malts and the grassy and citrus hops. The appearance is a dark red with off-white lacing. The aroma focuses on grassy hops with a hit of sharp grapefruit and peel. The hops are pretty interesting, but seem to have a celery note (I'm not a fan). I can't decide if I like how they work with the malt, but like I said, it's interesting. Definitely worth a try if you dig strong ales. This is one of the few beers I didn't necessarily enjoy, but would still recommend.