Beerheart.com

I just have to say this: American Chopper has jumped the shark. Probably some time last season, but it’s definitely all the way gone now. Somewhere a couple seasons ago, the Teutels became self-aware, which led to contrived and seemingly scripted arguments and confessionals, instead of the original father-son tension. Then the producers of the show started introducing out-of-the-shop inanity, a motorcycle joust last season and a demolition derby on the episode I saw tonight.

These detract from the show the same way This Old House’s weekly excursions away from the project do. Now, the new shop displays paid advertising and a huge banner for the show’s website. It’s all so much for a skinny, non-tattooed, totally unmechanical motorcyle-riding wannabe like me to digest.

It was inevitable. For how long can building movie-themed bikes remain interesting? How many times can Senior lose his temper before we think he should get help? Or before we actually feel sorry for Paulie, who will probably never have to work again when TLC—the Discovery Channel wisely passed the series to its less-watched child—puts the show to bed?

So, it’s onto the gimmicks. Mikey is no longer cute. (Hopefully, the producers will send him away to actually get a real job.) Say “hello” to Cousin Oliver next season.

I enjoyed this Colorado beer with our Frito pie dinner. I do enjoy the IPAs with spicy food, though this chili wasn’t as spicy as it would be if we weren’t serving it to our four children!

Here are my tasting notes: Light, hazy, copper color with gentle carbonation. Thin head but consistent lacing well after the pour. Apricots, citrus, and strong piney hop smell. Sits full and bitter on the tongue. The strong hops are offset by sweet malts, but still overall is the bitter taste you would expect from an IPA. Tastes of sweet malts, orange peel, and bread. Dry and bitter but clean finish with little aftertaste but a warm alcohol burn in the back of the throat.

I wouldn’t call it a “double IPA“. It’s not really as hoppy or bitter as the double IPA’s I’ve had. In fact, in terms of bitterness, without knowing the IBU’s, I’d say this is a fairly straightforward IPA—but a fine example nonetheless. (In fact, I’m not really sure that “double IPA” should be its own style; it has the feel of a marketing gimick to me.)

I will pay the Breck 471 a high compliment and say that it compares favorably to the popular (and rightly so) Dogfish 60-Minute IPA and Dogfish 90-Minute IPA. I do prefer both Dog IPAs, which are simultaneously more sweet and more bitter than this. But this is a supreme example of the IPA style.

The Great Divide Brewing Company is one of Colorado’s many fine brewers. (I’ll review Oak Aged Yeti Imperial Stout soon, but let me just say that you should get it!) I’ve selected their Great Divide St. Bridget’s Porter as my first Beer of the Week (BOTW). This beer has been around for more than a decade, but it may not be one that fans of the porter style outside of Colorado have tasted.

This beer pours black with red-amber highlights. Nice lacing that lingers before slowly dissipating. Chocolate and coffee smells are clearly evident, as are hints of roasted malt and floral hops. Feels thick in the mouth. Thin-to-slightly creamy and dry feeling. Tastes of dark chocolate, burnt rye, and mocha. Very rich and yet not too dry but reating the dryness that makes stouts and porters what they are. The beer finishes with a slight hoppy bitterness, fizzy carbonation, and a warm alcohol feel. Very nice example of the porter style.

There is a feature in the New York Times today reviewing brown ales. The author, Eric Asimov, generally writes about wines.

The article contains a nice comparison of the British brown ale and the German altbier styles, as well as a description and ratings of the beers tasted.

I haven’t invested a lot of time in brown ales. I find the most prominent brown in the US, Newcastle Brown, one of the two British ales served at finer TGI Friday’s everywhere, to taste skunked. Asimov picks a local beer, Boulder-based Avery Brewing’s Ellie’s Brown as his favorite of the beers tasted.

Be sure to check out the interactive beer tasting. The author recorded his tasting notes. It’s a nice instruction on how to taste beer.

I want to illustrate the rating system with a beer that surprised me. I took my wife to dinner at the French bistro Brasserie Ten Ten in Boulder for her birthday. (Or was it she who took me there for my birthday?) I generally drink beer, not wine or mixed drinks, even in a French restaurant. The beer list didn’t look too interesting. But I asked the waitress about “Old Chub”. She said it is a Scottish ale, and I ordered it.

Old Chub was delivered in a can! I was quite shocked, and my expectations were immediately quite low. I also wondered why they would charge $6 for it—it was the most expensive beer on the menu!

Well, Old Chub is a great beer! It pours medium brown/copper with a thin, quickly dissipating head. The nose is smoky, sweet malts, with hints of chocolate and caramel/toffee. This is a true Scottish ale, with chocolate hints and sweet malts playing against a slight burnt wood taste. The malty finish has a very high alcohol burn, but not as much as one might expect given that it’s 8% abv. My scoring is below:

Now, let’s compute the measure of value:

Oskar Blues’ Old Chub is available at my local reseller for $6.99 for six 12oz cans. That’s $1.17 per beer.

Ratebeer has Old Chub in the 92nd percentile. That makes the flavor-price (92/$1.17) ratio very high—78.97. That means there is a lot of bang for the buck in this beer. How much? Well, we have to compare to some a sample of other great beers. That’s the next post on this topic.

As I start this blog, I’ve decided to do a series on “value beers”. How do I define that? Well, I could define it like young Steve, a student at UNC, who defines value as the % of alcohol in the beer per price of a 12 oz serving. In other words, beer has value if you can get blasted on your pocket change.

I prefer to define “value” in beer as the best quality and taste for the buck. We all know that the Belgian tripel can be quite expensive, easily $9 or more for 25oz. But just as the Honda Odyssey is a Consumer Reports best buy, because of its quality and reliability, despite being the most expensive minivan, those fine Belgian beers might be so darn delicious that they still are a value. Just as with wines, you can introduce yourself to a different strata of beer quality and flavor without spending a ton of money.

My picks will obviously be subjective. I will recommend beers I enjoy and that I think are among the best beers that are widely available. That last bit is important. I want to select beers that you can find readily. And unfortunately, there are some great regional beers, in the Pacific Northwest or in the Northeast, for example, that I can’t get here in Colorado. And some great ones here that you can’t get.

I will use retail price at the place of purchase in the value equation. Your price may vary by as much as $2 for a six-pack. And I won’t count sale prices, but you should watch for them: Most beers go on sale a few times during the year. In fact, some of the larger liquor stores can have amazing sales. A year ago, I got single 16.9oz bottles of Fuller’s 1845 at the Boulder Liquor Mart for $1.99 each!

The measure of beer quality will be Ratebeer’s percentile score. I would prefer an absolute number rather than a percentile. (I haven’t thought through the possible ramifications of doing it this way yet.) But the percentile of between 1 and 100 will provide a greater differentiation in the bang-for-buck calculation across different beers.

Finally, I will use ratebeer.com’s rating format for my own tasting notes. An instructional article on rating beer is here. And a Word form for conducting your own ratings is here.

Ananova is reporting that an ale-style called Boza brewed in Bulgaria, made from millet and yeast, is enjoying popularity because it is believed to make women’s breasts larger.

“I’ve bought a case for my wife to try out. I really hope I see an improvement.” –Constantin Barbu

Brookston reports about Boza:

[It was] originally brewed in Babylonia and Egypt 5-6,000-years ago and in Mesopotamia as long ago as 8-9,000-years ago. There is also speculation that our word “booze” comes from this drink. Traditionally, Boza is made with millet but local variations also use maize (Turkey), wheat (Ethiopia), rice meal (Turkmenistan) or flour (Albania). In Bulgaria they use millet, one of the earliest used cereal grains and the one used in the original Bozas. Today, it is wildly popular throughout Eastern Europe and the Ottoman areas. It’s also quite low in alcohol, around 1% abv.

It seems too obvious to stick a photo of the St Pauli girl in this post. (You clicked the link expecting to see her, didn’t you.)

There is a short article in the online version of Wine Enthusiast’s “Best of 2006” issue focusing on the beers of Dogfish Head Brewery.

I first tasted a Dogfish in Houston sometime in early 2005. A friend and I were privileged to have the Dog 90 IPA (the 60 and the 120 ain’t so bad either) on tap at a pub in the Houston Heights. And then we had another pint. And another. it was hands-down the best IPA I’d ever tasted. Hoppy as hell, but with a nice sweet finish. About 3 in the morning, we pronounced it the official beer of 2005 and headed home for some sleep before going to work the next day. Since then, I’ve tried most other Dogfish beers. Not many misses in the bunch, and really, some of the most creative brewing going on in the US.

Dogfish founder Sam Calagione is famous for his beer dinners. He has written a book called Extreme Brewing: An Enthusiast’s Guide to Brewing Craft Beer at Home. While the term “extreme brewing” might sound corny, if anyone can truly lay claim to the title, Dogfish can. I’m not sure how much weight the idea that Dogfish is performing “historical recreations of ancient beers, such King Midas Golden Elixir…based on the molecular findings of food and drink residue from the pots and crocks found in the 1950s” has. Sounds like a Tazo tea story to me. But I don’t care. Use me! Fool me! But keep making great beers! (H/T Brookston)