BrewDog and Mikkeller, Devine Rebel

The collaboration is all the rage these days.  Hopefully, you've all at least had a chance to taste one of  Stone's many beers from their collaboration series, which includes breweries like Ballast Point, Nogne O, BrewDog, Dogfishead, Victory, Jolly Pumpkin, and many other notable brewers.  But it's not just brewers that collaborating these days.  Some of you were probably lucky enough to check out the ColLAboration event at Tony's this past weekend. ColLaboration is a series of pop-up mobile craft beer gardens where true beer enthusiasts can gather and enjoy the best in brews under the warm California sun.  It's led by some of the best beer bars in the city joining forces: Verdugo/Surly Goat, Blue Palms, 38 Degrees, and Tony's/Mohawk Bend.  You can check out their page here.  So it seems only fitting that tonight I'm drinking one of craft beer's biggest collaborators and extreme beer makers, Mikkeller and BrewDog.

For those that don't know, and there can't be many of you if you've even read my blog once, Mikkeller is a "gypsy brewer," originally hailing from Denmark with a love of American Style Ales.  The self-titled term, "gypsy brewer," comes from his lack of a home brewery, relying on the kindness and collaboration of other breweries to make his beer.  BrewDog is the Scottish brewery created by the young brewmeister rebels James Watt and Martin Dickie.  They are known for their eccentric and high gravity beers, including the famous Sink the Bizmark and Nuclear Penguin, weighing in at over 40% abv.  When these two get together, it only makes sense that they should chase after a style that is one of the grandest of all, the English Barleywine.

For the uninitiated, a barleywine is in fact a beer, not a wine.  The term wine is applied because it has a similar alcohol content to wine and is one of the strongest beer styles.  They tend to load up on every ingredient characterized by rich malt and fruit flavors and often bold hop bitterness.  The color can range anywhere from amber to brown and the body is usually very thick.  The only thing that separates the American Barleywine from the English is the use of hops.  American Barleywines tend to use more high alpha acid hops than their British cousins.

According to the bottle, this Devine Rebel is inspired by the experimental and rebellious nature of the two brewers who made it, using ale and champagne yeasts along with partially aging the beer in Speyside whiskey barrels.  The color is a beautiful rich ruby with very little head. Aromas are of malts with sweet raisins and toffee.  Despite having a failry boozy taste, it's still very drinkable.  There's a very strong malt and rich raisin flavor with a roasted essence that wasn't apparent in the aroma, but is quite strong in flavor.  True to the style, the hops are present, but certainly don't dominate.  It's not overly carbonated, but has just enough from the champagne yeast to have a nice balance against the otherwise creamy mouthfeel.  Unfortunately, I'm not tasting any of the whiskey barrels in this.  Still an enjoyable drink though.

Devine Rebel: ***1/2

Hair of the Dog Doggie Claws

Somehow this winter seasonal slipped into the back of my tasting queue and I find myself only now drinking it… in June, although undoubtedly this is being read in July. Oh well, when I drank this, it wasn't all that warm that day, so maybe a barleywine isn't the most horrible thing to put on the menu.

When I opened this bottle I did a double take when I didn't hear the normal hiss of carbonation and eyed it cautiously when I saw almost no bubbles in my glass.  This beer is certainly lacking in carbonation, glad to see that these kinds of mistakes can happen to the experts too!  Well it certainly puts a damper on my review to go on too much about the taste without the appropriate carbonation, but I'll give you an idea of the taste.  It's a very sweet beer, as barleywines tend to be, the richness of the caramel reminds me of the old stock's syrupy body.  The taste does bend round into an earthy, slightly isyprobyl alcohol, and bitter flavor, much the way you might do if you were trying to mentally steer your desparately hit golf ball back on course.  The 11% alcohol tastes very hot, especially on your throat, although I've come to somewhat expect this from higher gravity beers such as this.

Overall, really not something I'm enjoying, but the whole experience amounts to a foot faul given the lack of carbonation.  The beer is meant to be aged, but I'm glad I didn't; if I had opened this to zero carbonation in a matter of years rather than months I would have been pretty upset.  I give it one and a half stars for now, with the footnote that I had a bad bottle.  I certainly owe Hair of the Dog a second chance on this one.

Doggie Claws: *1/2

Nogne O #100

Nogne O suggests drinking this beer in a comfortable chair in front of the fireplace.  Since there's really no need for fireplaces in SoCal and the comfy chair is more often a European convention, my living room and couch will have to suffice.

However, I have been listening to a Mingus Pandora station a lot recently and I think combined with cooking dinner in the background and a relaxed Monday eve, the intention is the same.  Either way, it provides a nice background for this beer Barleywine.

Huge head, almost rocked out of my glass.  Lacing is thick and beautiful, the kind of foam you'd see in Peter Seller's The Party, for those that know it.  Very sweet aromas, hints of malt, berries, raisins, and a Belgian candi sugar: very complex.

Cool vapors out of the bottle.

Tasting this beer, however, brings a surprise to one's mouth.  The sweetness that is embedded in the aroma, is quick to disappear in a slimmer body with heavy hop presence.  The front end sort of vanishes as soon as you put it to your lips, replaced by a huge backend of alpha acid hops that have a fantastic bitter flavor and really get under and on the sides of your tongue.  In the middle there's a bittersweet chocolate bridge, capped with a hint of smokey flavor; they are unspoken, yet implied flavors, in this unusually complex, but not at all unenjoyable beer.

This barleywine departs from the usual sweet berry type beers that bear its namesake, however, does not disappoint where one would expect the hop presence.  A fuller body and a bigger balance on the front end would make me recommend this beer that much more, but as is, it's certainly an intriguing creation from our Norwegian friends.

#100: ***1/2

North Coast Old Stock Ale

As Winter turns to Spring and we turn our clocks forward for more daylight, so does my palate migrate towards lighter bodied pale ales, IPAs, pilsners and hefeweizensin this summer-like southern california weather.  But until I restock, I've got a fair amount of Barleywines and heavy ales in my fridge, so I've got some work to do.

Tarty aroma with a light touch of malts.  Average amount of head on this 11.7% beast.  The taste is rich and classic Barleywine.  A heavy body, rich with raisin-like malts and a deep amber color, the alcohol content cuts through and adds a delicious added component to therich body.  The hop presence is a little lighter than I'd like, definitely making its presence known in the mix, but hardly cutting through the thick malts.

Not a lot of incredible inventiveness here and I could definitely do with some more hops, but that being said, this is a pretty rock solid Barleywine for it's classic flavor and alcohol content, and I for one, am having a lot of fun drinking it.

Old Stock Ale: ***1/2

Barleywine Braised Short Ribs

It was another rainy day in Southern California.  It's a little known fact that we Angelinos are allergic to rain, and while my Pacific Northwest roots probably would have kept me dry, I thought, "why not stay inside and continue my ongoing quest to cook with beer?"  Today was a new challenge: Barleywine Braised Short Ribs.

I found a recipe that called for using a Barleywine Mustard marinade.  I had a few Barleywines in my fridge, but decided to go with this John Barleycorn from Mad River.

The reason I chose this beer is a lot simpler than you might imagine.  The other two Barleywines I had were Nogne O's, which I wasn't wasting, and North Coast's Old Stock, which at 11% seemed to heavy to cook with.

There's something very important I forgot to tell you.  Don't cross the streams.  It would be bad.

Here's a little before and after for your viewing pleasure.

So after we soaked the ribs in the marinade, we put them in the fridge overnight, and went out to pursue other happy adventures involving beers for drinking, not for cooking.

The next morning, they were breaded with flour, quickly fried, and then placed in the slow cooker for about 8 hours.  

A parsnip, potatoes, and carrots were prepared for the sauce.

Here are the short ribs after cooking, the sauce from it was used to cook the vegetables.

And then we brought it all back together before plating.

And here it is.

Served over rice, with a side of sauteed swiss chard and beet greens, and topped off with crusty bread and goat cheese. There's a sprig of parsley there too.  

And of course this is what it tends to look like afterwards.  Here's the recipe that I found off ratebeer: http://www.ratebeer.com/Recipe.asp?RecipeID=158

Alesmith 2008 Decadence Anniversary Ale

This is the Alesmith 2008 anniversary ale. I aged this beer starting around eight or nine months ago, however, presumably it was on the shelf for sometime before that.

This has a typical fruity and hoppy barleywine smell complimented with caramel and toffee, but it certainly isn't a potent one, I actually had to take two sniffs after being surprised by not getting much aroma after my first. Drinking this beer I feel a little conflicted because I want to like it. I've been aging it for the better part of a year and was saving it for spectacular unveiling. However, sip after sip, I'm not finding the characteristics that I'd like.

The rich berry-malty flavor that often defines a good barleywine, tastes all wrong as it goes thin and sour in the mouth; the body comes off like a sour apple cider. The hop character which emerges early, disappears entirely under the sourness of the malts.

Ultimately, the two tastes feel disconnected and you're left with the overall impression of sourness in your mouth. To be fair, I looked on beer advocate and saw that this beer was rated as an A-. It looks as though it may have had a peak age as reviews were split between those who enjoyed the beer and those had bad experiences after aging it too long. Perhaps the Decadence of 2008 had no place aging in a recession ridden 2009?

2008 Decadence Anniversary Ale: **