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

Mikkeller Chinook Single Hop IPA

A nice shade of golden with sweet apple-y aroma and just a hint of citrus hops.  Chinook are high alpha acid hops with a wonderful herbal, almost spicey/smokey character combined with a pine finish.  They are a distinctly American hop and are usually used during the last stage of the boil for aromatics, also often in dry hops.  The flavor really comes through in this beer.

The front end is all carbonation, really prickly.  As it evens out you get a strong burst of the Chinook in a smokey, almost earthy aftertaste.  Buried, inside that overwhelming smoke is a slight pine edge; it's a nice final touch to add just a little more complexity to the beer.  A very bitter, lopsided beer, this IPA is certainly not for beginners, and probably not for beer lovers who love a more traditional balance of grain and hops.  However, it is an interesting case study of the chinook hop strain, that really allows you to isolate and hone in on its flavors.  

Chinook Single Hop IPA: ***

Mikkeller, Nelson Sauvin Single Hope

Hope you all had a great LA Beer Week.  Back to good old Mikkeller.  A few months ago I decided I'd give you all a break from my nonstop Mikkeller raving, however, I still have four or five bottles of the Single Hop Series in my fridge, just waiting to be opened, so we're back at it again.

I thought I'd try the Nelson Sauvin because it's a hop I don't have much experience with.  Surprisingly, it originates in New Zealand rather than on the West Coast. I say surprising because Mikkeller generally shows a deference to West Coast Hop themed IPAs, so I was surprised this was one of his choices.  The hop is fairly cherised for its high alpha acids as well its grape like character.  That means it delivers quite a complex mix of fruitiness while still maintaining its hop bite.  It's oils are often described as "fresh crushed goose berries," which interestingly enough is more often a term used to describe a grape used in some Sauvignon Blancs.  This beer pours frothy with a decently webbed foam and a floral aroma dominated by the smell of red or green wine grapes.  The aroma of the grapes is distinct and really quite amazing.  The color is a much deeper orange than I would have expected, almost an amber.  The taste... wow, the flavor!

On stopping to think of how to describe the taste of this beer, I'm left slightly speechless at first due to its complexity and richness.  The front end is a subtle flavor, it starts with a even balance of fruit and malts.  As the beer opens up, you get a bit more of that young grape flavor that presented itself in the aroma.  The sweet flavors start to expand and for a moment you start to wonder if this could possibly be a barleywine – if somehow you grabbed the wrong bottle off the shelf.  But just as you're about to get up and check, the familiar hop bitterness begins to kick in, starting gradually and finishing with an extremely well balanced punch.  I can certainly see why this hop strain is so exhaulted and why Mikkeller had to use it.  It's an incredible balance of sweet and bitter, and the pungency of the grape flavor is so distinct that you really are wowed by its richness.  At 6.9%, the beer is just enough alcohol content to enjoy what you're drinking without being overwhelmed by the hot presence of alcohol on your throat and tongue.  I often bemoan IPAs that stray too far from the origin of the American style, however, the craftmanship in this beer leaves little room for criticism and even less liquid left in the bottle.

Nelson Sauvin Single Hop: *****

Stone 14th Anniversary Party

Two weekends ago I had the pleasure of attending Stone's 14th Anniversary Beer Festival at CSU San Marcos.  The event was really amazing: brewers from all over the world, rare and one off beers, and about 7,000 fellow beer lovers.  Megan and I were lucky enough to catch a ride with the Library Alehouse Express, a bus arranged by Library to shuttle us down and extend our day of shenanigans.

While the festival was amazing, I was a little disappointed that at $40 a ticket, food was additional once we got in.  We also got there about 45 minutes late, so for a three hour time period we had trouble getting through all 10 of our tickets.  Nonetheless, we had a ridiculous amount of great beers.  Here's the list of what we drank:

First
Dave: Baltic Thunder, Victory Brewing Co. (Downington, PA)
Megan: Undercover Investigation Shut-Down Ale, Lagunitas (Petaluma, CA)

Second
Dave: Ken Schmidt / Maui / Stone Kona Coffee Macadamia Coconut Porter (Collaboration)
Megan: I Beat You, Mikkeler (Kobenhavn, Denmark)

This porter was sweet heaven.  So rich, so well balanced.

Third
Dave: 16th Anniversary Wood Aged Double IPA, Great Divide Brewing Co. (Denver, CO)
Megan: BrewDog / Cambridge Brewing Co. / Stone Juxtaposition Black Pilsner

Fourth
Dave: Nøgne Ø / Jolly Pumpkin / Stone Special Holiday Ale - Brewed at Nøgne Ø, Norway
Megan: Dry Hopped Hog Heaven Barleywine-Style Ale, Avery Brewing Co. (Boulder, CO)

An Avery volunteer poses for the Dry Hopped Hog Heaven.

I was pretty excited about try the Special Holiday Ale, I was one of the first in line when it went on tap.

Much lighter bodied than I had expected, but still really delicious.

Fifth
Dave: Cho-Saiko, Pizza Port (San Diego-ish, CA )
Megan: Merlot Stout, SKA Brewing Co. (Durango, CO)

It was right around here that our effort to document our beer drinking for the day fell apart, at least pictorially.  Beer will do that.

Sixth
Dave: Hand Cask Stone 14th Anniversary Emperial IPA w/ Sovereign Hops
Megan: TEA (Traditional Experimental Ale), The Lost Abbey (San Marcos, CA)

 

Seventh
Dave: Modus Hoperandi, SKA Brewing Co. (Durango, CO)
Megan: Stone Smoked Porter w/ Chipotle Peppers

Eighth
Dave: Black Pearl, Coronado Brewing Co. (Coronado, CA)
Megan: Idiot IPA, Coronado Brewing Co. (Coronado, CA)

A fellow beer reveller offered to take our picture.

Then proceeded to spill beer on me.  He was a Lakers fan... typical.

Happy beer festival goers.

Back at the bus everyone was in good spirits.

Tom took us to a brand new gastropub called Urge.  The beer selection was incredible and pretty much everyone got one of their six burger options.  It was amazing.

We also had these fries, which I believe were covered with bacon.

Finally, we ended up at the Ballast Point Brewery for a tour.  Most of my pictures were pretty useless by this time.

That's it! An incredible beer filled day, great people and great food.  Can't wait for next year.

Mini Beercation - Day #2

I had been really excited to try Pizza Port for some time.  They make some incredible beers

and their love of hopping their American Style ales with Simcoe and other high alpha acid hops is really after my own heart.  So, after some roughly 20 miles hiked, we headed off to Pizza Port Carlsbad for Day #2 of Beercation 2010.

Unfortunately, through some navigational errors we ended up at Pizza Port Solano Beach instead.  This turned out to be a very fortunate miscalculation.  Solano Beach is actually the original location for Pizza Port and it gave us a glimpse of "Pizza Port past" that we wouldn't have gotten otherwise.

Walking into this joint was a serious blast from the past.  This place has a real small town and, dare I say, Pacific Northwest feel about it.  The beer places I grew up with, and came to love, were essentially giant rooms with big german beer hall style tables, video games at one end, and a walk up counter at the other where you can order your beer and/or pizza from the plethora of college kids working the night shift.  It's certainly not fancy, and probably not entirely hygienic, but you can fill up your growler, watch the game, and enjoy some great west coast style pizza.  It's the kind of place that simply doesn't exist in LA and may cease to exist as beer bars become increasingly fancy establishments in urban areas.  Not that I'm against all the wonderful new places that are sprouting up, they offer their own value, but I do think there is still a place for the good old fashion beer and pizza joint, and I couldn't have been happier to walk into this throwback.

Once I saw the beer board I got even more excited.  Most of their own stuff on the board were not available in the bottle, at least that I've seen.  That always makes for great tasting.  We started off with the Swami IPA.  Swami was just a solid American style IPA with classic Port Brewing Simcoe style hopping. I was really enjoying the Swami until I tried The Road IPA.  This beer blew my mind.  It was just a wonderfully balanced, yet still strong hopped double IPA. There were strong hints of citrus and a cannabis type flavor and it really finished with a lot of bite.  We enjoyed these beers with a delicious vegetarian pizza.  It was hard to contain my excitement.

The next round was the Jules Winfield.  This was described as a Strong American Stout, but it was the hoppiest stout I've ever tasted: not that that's a bad thing.  This beer could have almost passed as a Black IPA if it were not for the rich chocolate flavors on the front end of its taste.

Finally, I went with a Mikkeller IPA, which they happened to have on tap there.  It might seem strange to order a Mikkeller at Port, but it's so rare to find a Mikkeller beer on tap that I felt like I had to give it a try.  It actually proved to be very interesting comparison to the very American styled IPAs.  After drinking the long list of Port beers, the Mikkeller IPA was really overpowering with caramel and was a bit too strong in this comparison.

We met our neighbors as one does in close quarters and long tables like this.  One of them may have actually been Casey Affleck...

I was kind enough to help them pick out some better beers to order, and they returned the favor by buying us some of their pitcher... with no glass.  I improvised with some pouring skills I learned in Cinque Terre.

Afterwards, I bought a couple of rare bottles they had by the register.  The anniversary ale made me giddy like a school boy.

Next week, the long awaited journey to Stone Brewery headquarters for a very different sort of beer experience...

Mikkeller Cascade Single Hop IPA

Sorry for just one post last week.  I've been super busy recently, so I'm going to be scaling back my posts to just one a week.  That way I won't risk falling behind and you'll always be assured of at least one entry per week.  I just read an article on how beer increases bone strength.  In that spirit, I'll try a glass of Mikkeller's Cascade Single Hop IPA.  I actually tried this beer in Amsterdam while on one of my many picnics.  While the beer was like a taste of fresh air, while breathing in fresh air, it doesn't quite hold up to my memory of it.  

That being said, it's still Mikkeller, and he still has remarkable talent and taste.  Cascade is slowly becoming the classic American hop, and while perhaps not as potent as its simcoe and summit cousins, it's a smoother and darker taste that is perfect for bringing about good balance in a beer; and that is exactly what this beer does, balance.  

It has a sweet nose with a deep golden colors, a big head with a medium amount of lacing from the foam.  A sweeter front end with a hint of raisin and citrus is bolstered by a classic back end hop bitterness.  While the kick is nice, I wish there was a little more hop presence throughout the body, which when put altogether is a little thin.  Still a very nice very drinkable creation.  6.9 alc%

Cascade Single Hop IPA: ***